Model error is one of the key factors restricting the accuracy of numerical weather prediction(NWP). Considering the continuous evolution of the atmosphere, the observed data(ignoring the measurement error) can be viewed as a series of solutions of an accurate model governing the actual atmosphere. Model error is represented as an unknown term in the accurate model, thus NWP can be considered as an inverse problem to uncover the unknown error term. The inverse problem models can absorb long periods of observed data to generate model error correction procedures. They thus resolve the deficiency and faultiness of the NWP schemes employing only the initial-time data. In this study we construct two inverse problem models to estimate and extrapolate the time-varying and spatial-varying model errors in both the historical and forecast periods by using recent observations and analogue phenomena of the atmosphere. Numerical experiment on Burgers' equation has illustrated the substantial forecast improvement using inverse problem algorithms. The proposed inverse problem methods of suppressing NWP errors will be useful in future high accuracy applications of NWP.
The cold vortex is a major high impact weather system in northeast China during the warm season, its frequent activities also affect the short-term climate throughout eastern China. How to objectively and quantitatively predict the intensity trend of the cold vortex is an urgent and difficult problem for current short-term climate prediction. Based on the dynamical-statistical combining principle, the predicted results of the Beijing Climate Center's global atmosphere–ocean coupled model and rich historical data are used for dynamic-statistical extra-seasonal prediction testing and actual prediction of the summer 500-h Pa geopotential height over the cold vortex activity area. The results show that this method can significantly reduce the model's prediction error over the cold vortex activity area, and improve the prediction skills.Furthermore, the results of the sensitivity test reveal that the predicted results are highly dependent on the quantity of similar factors and the number of similar years.
With the influence of global warming,the global climate has undergone significant inter-decadal variation since the late 1970s.Although El Nio-Southern Oscillation(ENSO)has been the strongest signal for predicting global climate inter-annual variability,its relation with the summer rainfall in China has significantly changed,and its indicative function on the summer rainfall in China has weakened.This has led to a significant decrease in the accuracy rate of early conceptual prediction models for the Three Rainfall Patterns in the summer of eastern China.On the basis of the difference analysis of atmospheric circulation system configuration in summer,as well as the interaction of ocean and atmospheric in previous winter between two phases,i.e.before and after the significant global warming(1951 to 1978 and 1979 to 2012,respectively),we concluded that(1)Under different inter-decadal backgrounds,the atmospheric circulations that impacted the Three Rainfall Patterns in the summer of eastern China showed consistency,but in the latter phase of the global warming,the Western Pacific Subtropical High(WPSH)was on the strong side,the position of which was in the south,and the blocking high in the Eurasia mid-high latitudes was active,while the polar vortex extended to the south,and meridional circulation intensified.This circulation background may have been conducive to the increase of the circulation frequency of Patterns II and III,and the decrease of the circulation frequency of Pattern I,thus leading to more Patterns II and III and fewer Pattern I in the summer rainfall of eastern China.(2)In the former phase,the corresponding previous winter SST fields of different rainfall patterns showed visible differences.The impact of ENSO on North Pacific Oscillation(NPO)was great,and the identification ability of which on Patterns I and II of summer rainfall was effective.In the latter phase,this identification ability decreased,while the impact of ENSO on the Pacific/North American(PNA)teleconnection pattern increased,and
The Eurasian teleconnection pattern(EU) is an important low-frequency pattern with well-known impacts on climate anomalies in Eurasia. The difference of low-level v-winds in several regions in the Eurasian mid–high latitudes is defined as the EU index(EUIV). In this study, the relationship between the winter EUIVand precipitation in the following summer over China is investigated. Results show that there is a significant positive(negative) correlation between the winter EUIVand the following summer precipitation over North China(the Yangtze River–Huaihe River basins). Meanwhile, an interdecadal variability exists in the interannual relationship, and the correlation has become significantly enhanced since the early 1980 s.Thus, the proposed EUIVmay have implications for the prediction of summer precipitation anomalies over China. In positive winter EUIVyears, three cyclonic circulation anomalies are observed—over the Ural Mountains, the Okhotsk Sea, and the subtropical western North Pacific. That is, the Ural blocking and Okhotsk blocking are inactive, zonal circulation prevails in the mid–high latitudes, and the western Pacific subtropical high tends to be weaker and locates to the north of its normal position in the following summer. This leads to above-normal moisture penetrating into the northern part of East China, and significant positive(negative) precipitation anomalies over North China(the Yangtze River–Huaihe River basins), and vice versa. Further examination shows that the SST anomalies over the Northwest Pacific and subtropical central North Pacific may both contribute to the formation of EUIV-related circulation anomalies over the western North Pacific.
In this paper, the early warning signals of abrupt temperature change in different regions of China are investigated.Seven regions are divided on the basis of different climate temperature patterns, obtained through the rotated empirical orthogonal function, and the signal-to-noise temperature ratios for each region are then calculated. Based on the concept of critical slowing down, the temperature data that contain noise in the different regions of China are preprocessed to study the early warning signals of abrupt climate change. First, the Mann–Kendall method is used to identify the instant of abrupt climate change in the temperature data. Second, autocorrelation coefficients that can identify critical slowing down are calculated. The results show that the critical slowing down phenomenon appeared in temperature data about 5–10 years before abrupt climate change occurred, which indicates that the critical slowing down phenomenon is a possible early warning signal for abrupt climate change, and that noise has less influence on the detection results of the early warning signals. Accordingly, this demonstrates that the model is reliable in identifying the early warning signals of abrupt climate change based on detecting the critical slowing down phenomenon, which provides an experimental basis for the actual application of the method.
The two northward jumps of summer West Pacific Subtropical High(WPSH) are defined based on the pentad-scale ridge data of the WPSH ridge in 1951 to 2012. The times of the northward jumps are found to have obvious inter-annual and decadal characteristics, i.e., the occurrence of the first northward jump of WPSH shows a "consistently early–consistently late" decadal pattern, with the transition around 1980; the occurrence of the second northward jump of WPSH shows a"consistently late–consistently early–consistently late" decadal pattern, with the transitions about 1955 and 1978, respectively, which is consistent with global warming. In the meantime, the times of the two northward jumps not only have a good correspondence to the beginning and ending dates of the rainy season, but also greatly influence the position of the main rain belt in Eastern China. When the first northward jump occurs early, the main rain belt is located from just north of30?N to the south of North China, while the opposite situation appears when the first jump occurs late. When the second jump occurs early, more rain falls over North China and South China, but less falls in the Yangtze River region, while the opposite situation appears when the second jump occurs late. In the four cases when abnormalities occur in the same year as early or late northward jumps, the position of the main rain belt can be considered as a superposition of isolated abnormal effects of the two northward jumps. Moreover, the prophase and synchronous forces of the sea surface temperature in the Pacific has great influence on the times of the northward jumps, and the driving forces of the two jumps differ.
Based on nonlinear prediction and information theory,vertical heterogeneity of predictability and information loss rate in geopotential height field are obtained over the Northern Hemisphere.On a seasonal-to-interannual time scale,the predictability is low in the lower troposphere and high in the mid-upper troposphere.However,within mid-upper troposphere over the subtropics ocean area,there is a relatively poor predictability.These conclusions also fit the seasonal time scale.Moving to the interannual time scale,the predictability becomes high in the lower troposphere and low in the mid-upper troposphere,contrary to the former case.On the whole the interannual trend is more predictable than the seasonal trend.The average information loss rate is low over the mid-east Pacific,west of North America,Atlantic and Eurasia,and the atmosphere over other places has a relatively high information loss rate on all-time scales.Two channels are found steadily over the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean in subtropics.There are also unstable channels.The fourseason influence on predictability and information communication are studied.The predictability is low,no matter which season data are removed and each season plays an important role in the existence of the channels,except for the winter.The predictability and teleconnections are paramount issues in atmospheric science,and the teleconnections may be established by communication channels.So,this work is interesting since it reveals the vertical structure of predictability distribution,channel locations,and the contributions of different time scales to them and their variations under different seasons.
